Taiwan is confident that the administration of US President Donald Trump would allow President William Lai (賴清德) to make a US stopover, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday, citing communication with Washington.
“We don’t think having transit stops in the US will be an issue,” Lin said in an interview. “Based on our communication, we are confident in the near future, we can just have a visit to the Latin American countries by way of the United States.”
Trump denied a request for Lai to pass through the US in August as part of a trip to diplomatic allies Paraguay, Guatemala and Belize, people familiar with the matter said at the time.
Photo: Lam Yik Fei, Bloomberg
The US was concerned that a stopover could disrupt trade negotiations with China and a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), the people said.
Turning to the dispute between China and Japan, Lin said that tensions sparked by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s recent comments on Taiwan could take “maybe a year to stabilize.”
Worsening the friction or issues related to Taiwan would offer little benefit to any party, he said.
“For Beijing, it’s also not in its interest to escalate the conflict,” he said.
Taiwan is at the center of the dispute between China and Japan, which started after Takaichi commented on the possible involvement of Japanese troops if China were to invade Taiwan.
Lin reiterated support for Japan in the interview, saying “we show our support through, I think, a soft approach” while also trying “to help cool down the situation.”
Taiwan brought together representatives from “like-minded countries” to discuss the spat over Takaichi’s remarks, he said.
“We also communicated with various countries through our established channels both before and after the spat broke out, and there is a solid foundation of mutual trust,” he added.
Officials in Taipei “have no doubt on the Trump administration’s commitment to the regional security in the Indo-Pacific,” Lin said.
Taipei sees “a lot of room to work with Europe,” especially on security, supply chains and defending democracy in the face of authoritarianism, he added.
Taiwan also hopes to facilitate cooperation with the Philippines on developing artificial intelligence data centers, he said.
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